News - Project Team

Assoc. Prof. Leyla Neyzi
Özgül Akıncı
Eda Çakmakçı
Haydar Darıcı
Sibel Maksudyan

Assoc. Prof. Leyla Neyzi
Leyla Neyzi was born in Istanbul. After graduating from Robert College, she received a BA in cultural anthropology from Stanford University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in development sociology from Cornell University in 1991. Her doctoral thesis addressing the transition of the Yörük nomads of Antalya to greenhouse cultivation and tourism won the Malcolm Kerr Dissertation Award from the Middle East Studies Association of North America (1992). Between 1992 and 1994, Neyzi taught in the Department of Sociology at Boğaziçi University. From 1995 to 1996, she was the Oral History Project director for the History Foundation (Tarih Vakfı). Between 1997 and 1998, her writings on oral history appeared in the newspaper Gazete Pazar. Since1998, she has been a faculty member of the Cultural Studies Graduate Program in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabancı University. Neyzi, whose areas of interest include cultural identity, nationalism and minorities, youth culture, Middle Eastern and Southeast European ethnography and oral history, and urban space and neighborhood identity, is currently a member of the American Anthropology Association and the International Oral History Association. Among her books written in Turkish are İstanbulda Hatırlamak ve Unutmak: Birey, Bellek ve Aidiyet (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1999), Küçük Hanımdan Rubu Asırlık Adama: Nezihe Neyzi’den Oğlu Nezih Neyzi’ye Mektuplar (Istanbul: Sel Yayıncılık), Ben Kimim? Türkiye’de Sözlü Tarih, Kimlik ve Öznellik (İletişim, 2004).

Özgül Akıncı

Born in Istanbul in 1983, Akinci graduated from the Department of Psychology at Bogaziçi University in 2006. She obtained her master’s degree from the Cultural Studies Graduate Program at Sabanci University in 2008 with a dissertation on theater and memory.

Eda Çakmakçı

Çakmakci completed her studies in the Department of Cultural Studies at Sabanci University in 2007 with a BA thesis on the antiquarian and secondhand booksellers (sahafs) in Istanbul. She is currently pursuing an MA in anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Her areas of interest include social gender, oral history, new religious trends, and globalization.

Haydar Darıcı

Darici obtained his BA from the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at Bogaziçi University and his MA from the Cultural Studies Graduate Program at Sabanci University. His master’s thesis focused on the politics of Kurdish children and adolescents in the metropolis. Darici has taken part as a research assistant in various oral history projects and is, at present, part of the “Adult Education and Oral History Contributing to Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation” project team.

Sibel Maksudyan

Born in 1981, Maksudyan, whose areas of interest focus on video and photography, holds an MA from the Department of Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design at Sabanci University. Together with Leyla Neyzi, she is currently, part of the “Adult Education and Oral History Contributing to Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation” project team.